What makes Toronto... Toronto?

[jn_12]

Apologies for the double post

That's true, but I don't know how far I would carry it. We are certainly young by comparison to European cities, and even compared to east coast US cities. At the same time though, we are older than many Asian cities like Hong Kong or Singapore which were basically quaint colonial outposts until after WWII. In some ways, we are almost older than major cities like Tokyo or Seoul which were essentially rebuilt from the ground up over the past half century. Certainly the identity of Tokyo as a super-futuristic megacity filled with concrete and neon has little relationship with the eminently flammable paper and wood shacks that used to characterize it. Even cities like Calgary or Vancouver, much as Torontonians are loathe to admit it, have a much clearer sense of self than we do.

I'm skeptical on the impact of history on these things. From what I've seen, cities identities are based more on a shared feeling of where they are going as opposed to where they have been.

But, I would argue, a city is also about traditions and links to the past and an understanding of where its been. In fact, I'd say it's impossible for there to be a shared sense of where a place is going because 1) most people don't think about themselves in the future, never mind the city they live in; 2) there would be so many different views on where a place is going, that something cohesive and shared would be difficult for anyone to pin down and; 3) the future can't be predicted and you can't base your current definition on a future event (for example, could September 10th, 2001 New York look to the future to define itself?)

I agree that technology has altered asian cities immensely, but at the same time, much of what differentiates each city is tied to its past. If you showed me the high-tech infrastructure of ten Asian cities, I probably couldn't tell you which is which, nor would it tell you anything about each city.

I think in the case of Calgary and Vancouver, the definition is ingrained in geography. I don't know Calgary well other than its cowboy image and its conservative tendencies, but I think it's image is a reflection of the historical western narrative. I could be wrong there though.

I just think history says a lot. The reason we don't have a definable image is because we don't have (or at least we don't embrace) a history. Also, the majority of people here don't have a link to a common history as their history is attached to somewhere else.

 

[junctionist]

Most cities in North America, however, were formed around the same time (give or take) in the 18th or 19th centuries. Toronto is not 'younger' than Chicago or San Francisco or Vancouver or many other cities that do have a strong sense of history and identity. Toronto *does* have these things but we just don't like them. They're not considered cool or exotic or interesting so we have looked to something new to reinvent ourselves (Multicultural diversity). Toronto is Madonna.

Toronto may have existed then, but as a much smaller and more provincial city. Even after WWII, Buckminster Fuller compared it with the likes of Indianapolis. Cities like Chicago were already seen as big cities by the turn of the 20th century. They had the population and economic size which allowed for an identity to easily form.

Also, when I think of Vancouver, I don't see it as having an obvious uniqueness to it beyond its geography and monotonous skyline of glass towers. Montreal on the other hand definitely has no worries about identity. It has a long history as the leading Canadian city in population and economic size, which only changed recently.

 

[Whoaccio]

I disagree that a City is "about tradition" or the past. Arguably, many cities have a horrible past. Living in Berlin isn't about reliving the Nazi's and visiting Beijing isn't about reliving Tienanmen Square. We build memorials to the past, and we remember the past, but most of us don't want to live there. Most people's decisions are based on future outlook. Informed by the past, but focused on the future. You don't buy a house because you think the area was nice, but because you think it will be nice. Likewise, a City is identified more by its expected future than past.

Detroit is a good example. It was a great industrial city, it practically built the American middle class and has no shortage of heritage buildings to proove it. Everyone who looks at it now though comes to the conclusion that it will probably still suck in 2020. Nobody wants to build a great new skyscraper or invest in sprucing up some beautiful old homes now because they think they wont get a return years down the road. Collectively, this pessimism about Detroit's future is what infuses the City with an identity as a total armpit.

Calgary, meanwhile, has very little history. What history it does have is actually quite unflattering, a boom-bust outpost in the middle of nowhere colonized by all manner of hicks and rednecks. People though have come to the conclusion that Calgary's future is bright and prosperous, and the city's identity has changed accordingly. Rather than some backwater, people there think of it as Canada's newest major city. Rather than a cultural wasteland, people there are more prone to think of it as a center for their affinities. Rather than a boom-bust roller coaster, families are relocating there because they think their long term earning power will rise. Vancouver's got a lot of the same thing going on, but with nicer geography. It wasn't that long ago Vancouver was just a "hick town", but now everyone thinks it will be San Francisco North.

I wasn't alive at the time, but looking back I get the feeling that Toronto had such an optimism about itself in the mid part of this century. Long story short, those decades went well for us. Eventually we took over from Montreal as "Canada's number one city", which is to this day one of our main identities, and we built to reflect this kind of future optimism. Sleek modernist apartment blocks all over the City, a shiny new subway system clad in vitrolite, a futuristic City Hall and, eventually, the tallest free standing structure on Earth. Most of our identity today is built off of what we did then. We eventually became much more conservative and hostile to progress. Consequently, more and more of the dynamic moved out of the City. Rather than building on our identity, we just abandoned it.

 

[jn_12]

Whoaccio, I'm liking this debate. It's really interesting and thought-provoking. I'm actually writing my masters thesis on something similar.

I disagree that a City is "about tradition" or the past. Arguably, many cities have a horrible past. Living in Berlin isn't about reliving the Nazi's and visiting Beijing isn't about reliving Tienanmen Square. We build memorials to the past, and we remember the past, but most of us don't want to live there. Most people's decisions are based on future outlook. Informed by the past, but focused on the future. You don't buy a house because you think the area was nice, but because you think it will be nice. Likewise, a City is identified more by its expected future than past.

I agree we focus on the future rather than the past when we buy a house somewhere but that's because we have a vested interest in purchasing something that is in our best interest. However, the past still plays a role in the present and future. I don't think we want to relive anything horrible, but this isn't about reliving it. It's about acknowledging it and acknowledging that it has played a role in sculpting the city and the image we have of it. Whether anyone from Beijing or Berlin like it or not, their cities have a history that speaks to a sometimes horrible past. I just don't think anyone can look solely to the future to identify a city when the future is so broad with possibilities and the past tells a much more definitive story.

case in point: Detroit.

Detroit is a good example. It was a great industrial city, it practically built the American middle class and has no shortage of heritage buildings to proove it. Everyone who looks at it now though comes to the conclusion that it will probably still suck in 2020. Nobody wants to build a great new skyscraper or invest in sprucing up some beautiful old homes now because they think they wont get a return years down the road. Collectively, this pessimism about Detroit's future is what infuses the City with an identity as a total armpit.

I would say its the opposite. The depression isn't so much in the bleak future but a look back at what once was. if the city always sucked, then no one would care. But because it has gone from grandeur to relative squalor in a century, it's a very depressing story. I see where you're coming from though, I just disagree that the image of the city is in its bleak future.

Calgary, meanwhile, has very little history. What history it does have is actually quite unflattering, a boom-bust outpost in the middle of nowhere colonized by all manner of hicks and rednecks. People though have come to the conclusion that Calgary's future is bright and prosperous, and the city's identity has changed accordingly. Rather than some backwater, people there think of it as Canada's newest major city. Rather than a cultural wasteland, people there are more prone to think of it as a center for their affinities. Rather than a boom-bust roller coaster, families are relocating there because they think their long term earning power will rise. Vancouver's got a lot of the same thing going on, but with nicer geography. It wasn't that long ago Vancouver was just a "hick town", but now everyone thinks it will be San Francisco North.

I'll concede that perhaps Calgary is an outlier here. I don't know it well enough. I think its unique in that its an oil city and without oil its nothing. So yes the future looks bright to an extent and people would be looking to the future of riches there, but what happens in 100 years from now? Will its image still be as a city looking to the future? Or a city looking back at the glory of the past?

I wasn't alive at the time, but looking back I get the feeling that Toronto had such an optimism about itself in the mid part of this century. Long story short, those decades went well for us. Eventually we took over from Montreal as "Canada's number one city", which is to this day one of our main identities, and we built to reflect this kind of future optimism. Sleek modernist apartment blocks all over the City, a shiny new subway system clad in vitrolite, a futuristic City Hall and, eventually, the tallest free standing structure on Earth. Most of our identity today is built off of what we did then. We eventually became much more conservative and hostile to progress. Consequently, more and more of the dynamic moved out of the City. Rather than building on our identity, we just abandoned it.

I think that's much of Canada to be honest. The 60s was our hay-day.
If we do look to the future for our identity, I think we'd probably all be depressed by the blandness and conservatism.

I just think we're either in the midst of living the history that Toronto's image will be built upon or that history hasn't started yet. I guess in a way that's looking to the future, but it's looking at an unknown future which I don't think works for your argument.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

In defense of Cowtown

Whoaccio quote:
Calgary, meanwhile, has very little history. What history it does have is actually quite unflattering, a boom-bust outpost in the middle of nowhere colonized by all manner of hicks and rednecks. People though have come to the conclusion that Calgary's future is bright and prosperous, and the city's identity has changed accordingly. Rather than some backwater, people there think of it as Canada's newest major city. Rather than a cultural wasteland, people there are more prone to think of it as a center for their affinities. Rather than a boom-bust roller coaster, families are relocating there because they think their long term earning power will rise. Vancouver's got a lot of the same thing going on, but with nicer geography. It wasn't that long ago Vancouver was just a "hick town", but now everyone thinks it will be San Francisco North.

jn_12 quote: I'll concede that perhaps Calgary is an outlier here. I don't know it well enough. I think its unique in that its an oil city and without oil its nothing. So yes the future looks bright to an extent and people would be looking to the future of riches there, but what happens in 100 years from now? Will its image still be as a city looking to the future? Or a city looking back at the glory of the past?

As a Calgary-born redneck, I think Whoaccio is being way too harsh on the old 'burg. Calgary has been the 5th largest city in Canada since at least the '70s; it's not just the latest oil boom that's moved it up the ranks. The economy is still about O&G, but some diversification has taken place. And, with Kananaskis Country and the Rockies, the scenery and outdoor activities are pretty spectacular. Calgary really came of age with the Olympics in 1988, which is 20 years ago now.

The downside of Calgary tends to be a certain homogeneity of thought. It's a very pro-business culture, and political changes tend to be in tectonic shifts every 30 years or so. Culturally, it holds its own, but it definitely isn't a Toronto or Chicago.

All in all, I'd say any Torontonian or Montrealer with a pro-business bent would feel right at home in today's Calgary.

 

[Second_in_pie]

@ jn_12: I agree, this is getting interesting.

I disagree that a City is "about tradition" or the past. Arguably, many cities have a horrible past. Living in Berlin isn't about reliving the Nazi's and visiting Beijing isn't about reliving Tienanmen Square. We build memorials to the past, and we remember the past, but most of us don't want to live there. Most people's decisions are based on future outlook. Informed by the past, but focused on the future. You don't buy a house because you think the area was nice, but because you think it will be nice. Likewise, a City is identified more by its expected future than past.

This is true. I wouldn't say that cities are really dependent on history per se, but more establishment. New York has been established as a population and economic centre for a very long time. As you said later, Chicago and LA were already well established by the turn of the 20th century. Toronto wasn't very well established at all by the turn of the 20th century, and really only got into the big international picture around the 1960s, and it was small at that time. By this time, Chicago, LA and New York were all very well established internationally, and Toronto was really lagging behind.

Calgary, meanwhile, has very little history. What history it does have is actually quite unflattering, a boom-bust outpost in the middle of nowhere colonized by all manner of hicks and rednecks. People though have come to the conclusion that Calgary's future is bright and prosperous, and the city's identity has changed accordingly. Rather than some backwater, people there think of it as Canada's newest major city. Rather than a cultural wasteland, people there are more prone to think of it as a center for their affinities. Rather than a boom-bust roller coaster, families are relocating there because they think their long term earning power will rise. Vancouver's got a lot of the same thing going on, but with nicer geography. It wasn't that long ago Vancouver was just a "hick town", but now everyone thinks it will be San Francisco North.

I agree as well, and that brings me back to being established rather than having a rich history. Maybe it's just that Canada's behind the US. The Vancouver area certainly has a growing international reputation much like that of San Francisco, and I think it definitely will be a San Francisco North.
Calgary has only really started getting attention in the late 1980s and 1990s, and it's growing more and more, while being fueled less and less by the oil industry.
Montreal and Quebec have the most culture and history in Canada by far, and maybe the most in North America. Unfortunately, a lot of Montreal's economy has left to Toronto. I'm sure that there's some sort of bigger niche for the city, but I can't think of one right now


So to sum things up, it's not so much history as establishment. Cities like London and Paris have both a rich history and are well established. I wouldn't say that Chicago has a rich history like New York or London, but it became very well established in the 20th century, which is really what helped it.

 

[Whoaccio]

Hmm... Let me see if I can rephrase what I think guides the development of a City's identity.

For starters, a given society's identity is roughly the sum of its cultural artifacts. Ideas, buildings, infrastructure, songs, foods, art and such. Different people will place different focus on different artifacts, but chances are when most people think of a city some combination of artifacts will come to mind.

Moving on, each of those artifacts is the product of time, money and effort invested by individuals or groups. Ultimately, what guides the allocation of scarce resources and time is some expectation of future return. Nobody will build a luxurious rail terminal if they think nobody will use it. Nobody would paint a painting if they wouldn't derive some kind of pleasure from it later. Nobody will try to make an inovative dish unless they think people will want it. Basically, people do things because they think it will somehow improve their life in the future.

The key is that people's decisions are made by considering expectations: future costs and future benefits. I think if rational people look at Detroit, most of them would expect the future performance to be poor. If you are Joe Blow Public, your main investment is your house. If Joe expects his Detroit house will depreciate, he has a clear incentive to sell it and move elsewhere. If you are an artist, and you expect the art market in Detroit will tighten, you have no incentive to move there and make art. If you are a major corporation, you have all kinds of reasons to expect Detroit will just get worse and you shouldn't bother investing there. If nobody is willing to invest in Detroit, then it will produce less and worse quality artifacts. It can become a self fulfilling prophecy, with expectations of future declines actually accelerating the process.

An obvious Toronto example would be the flight of business from Montreal. Clearly, among businesses, expecations of future prosperity and safety in Montreal were seriously readjusted after the October Crisis. That change in expected future prosperity was enough to convince many of them to relocate to Toronto. That, in turn, created many of the artifacts we now associate with Toronto's identity. History is important in so much as it can inform a decision: Toronto's anglophone and conservative history would have made it unlikely for something like the Quiet Revolution to happen here. The motivation remained fundamentally forward looking in nature though.

On the extreme end, you get cities like Hong Kong. After WWII, and especially after the communist takeover of the mainland, Hong Kong sucked up so many immigrants and so much capital because people thought it was the most stable place in the South China Seas. The millions of migrants and businesses that went there all felt their futures would be better in Hong Kong than Mainland China. And they invested in Hong Kong because of it, making arguably the best skyline on Earth, a cinema industry of regional significance, one of the world's busiest ports, the biggest recording industry in Asia outside of Tokyo and a stock market exchange of global significance. All of that, in a half century and with no relevant history to speak of. Not even their own country.

 

[golodhendil]

On the extreme end, you get cities like Hong Kong. After WWII, and especially after the communist takeover of the mainland, Hong Kong sucked up so many immigrants and so much capital because people thought it was the most stable place in the South China Seas. The millions of migrants and businesses that went there all felt their futures would be better in Hong Kong than Mainland China. And they invested in Hong Kong because of it, making arguably the best skyline on Earth, a cinema industry of regional significance, one of the world's busiest ports, the biggest recording industry in Asia outside of Tokyo and a stock market exchange of global significance. All of that, in a half century and with no relevant history to speak of. Not even their own country.

In general I agree with what you said, but I think it would be unreasonable to say history played no part in HK, or any cities', identities. It is precisely HK's historical position as a British colony that gave HK its stability amidst the turmoil in China during the 20th century (from imperial Qing dynasty to ROC to PRC). HK's role as a base for anti-imperial revolutionaries, for ROC remnants post-PRC, and for anti-colonial communists during the 60s, and as a bridge between the West and China, and between Taiwan and Mainland, strongly influenced both the society and culture of HK as well as the unfolding of modern Chinese history in general. The Sino-British talks and the reunification itself have contributed immensely to the maturation of HK's identity, with the sentiment of "Borrowed time, borrowed place" during the final decades of colonial rule basically creating the modern HK culture, and the current struggle between resistance to and assimilation by the culture of greater China further strengthening the HK identity.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Toronto is a Third World, organic metropolis that somehow is the dominant economic centre for a medium-sized Western liberal democracy. This can be both invigorating and infuriating, but this is what we are and it is pretty damn unique.

 

[junctionist]

Toronto is a Third World, organic metropolis that somehow is the dominant economic centre for a medium-sized Western liberal democracy. This can be both invigorating and infuriating, but this is what we are and it is pretty damn unique.

Come on, I know the bureaucracy at City Hall may be frustrating, but what they provide some quality services on the "First World" level, to use that antiquidated term.

 

[lordmandeep]

really your the type of a person who goes to Paris and thinks it the best and most well run place in the world and totally ignores the huge areas with like 30% unemployment.

 

[adma]

I wasn't alive at the time, but looking back I get the feeling that Toronto had such an optimism about itself in the mid part of this century. Long story short, those decades went well for us. Eventually we took over from Montreal as "Canada's number one city", which is to this day one of our main identities, and we built to reflect this kind of future optimism. Sleek modernist apartment blocks all over the City, a shiny new subway system clad in vitrolite, a futuristic City Hall and, eventually, the tallest free standing structure on Earth. Most of our identity today is built off of what we did then. We eventually became much more conservative and hostile to progress. Consequently, more and more of the dynamic moved out of the City. Rather than building on our identity, we just abandoned it.

A comparison worth considering: Moses vs post-Moses NYC (and interesting that Jane Jacobs fits into both scenarios).

The irony is that by the time Toronto actually took over as "Canada's number one city" (in the 70s), it was already, under the Crombie/Sewell/Jacobs spectre, retreating from such future-optimism contrivance...

 

[PukeGreen]

Calgary, meanwhile, has very little history. What history it does have is actually quite unflattering, a boom-bust outpost in the middle of nowhere colonized by all manner of hicks and rednecks.

Hahahaha. So, basically, nothing ever changes.

 

[TrickyRicky]

I just got back from a few weeks in Northern California and one thing I'll add about what makes Toronto, Toronto. We absolutely love to compare and complain and search the globe for examples and reasons to self-depricate!

What a wonderful, beautiful and prosperous area San Francisco and the Bay area is. Relatively safe, innovative, creative and civic minded. And yet my impression of this city region (slightly larger than the GTA) is that despite being generally more wealthy than people here, they would kill to have 1/3 the dynamic construction, civic debate, city building, institutional development and cultural activity we are currently experiencing here.

Then I get back here and read several of the typical Toronto in decline laments in the newspaper. Well maybe we are in decline, but if that is the case so many of our peers like our gorgeous and wonderful friend San Francisco, are truly finished.

 

[urbandreamer]

^Did you check out Petaluma, Bodega/Valley Ford/Sebastopol and the rest of the lost coast? Must say wow! But the most spectacular and isolated part of Northern Cali? Honeydew, deep in the heart of the redwoods, where I thought I was lost. I spent nearly a month there in July.